Category: Music

Like most people I know, I spend hours listening to music of all types.

Cesaria Evora: Cape Verde’s voice of hope [Music]

Listen to Sodade first. Then make up your mind if you want to listen to more (I promise you will!). A  HeadButler share (he interviewed her about 10 years ago)

It wasn’t until her 50s that she became the darling of the world-music crowd. She still performed shoeless, to express her solidarity with her impoverished countrymen. She still stopped singing in mid-concert to sit at a small table and smoke a cigarette. And she never veered from the music she’d made for decades; the last thing on her mind, it seemed, was mass success

Bombino – African guitar [Music]

Jesse Kornbluth (Headbutler) is a great source of discovery of things (books, music, stuff) that are not popular but should be. He writes this about Bombino, an African guitarist:

What are you getting? “Nomad,” 40 minutes of music by an African guitarist who’s called Bombino. It’s protein-rich: great for parties (you will come to be bored by friends asking “What is that?”), a lifesaver on rainy mornings when you don’t want to get out of bed, a good candidate for serious listening, a caffeine hit for long sessions of work when your friends are getting buzzed on Adderall, and, so far from least, an essential ingredient for ecstatic couplings at midnight.

Hearing is believing. Crank the volume. See if this doesn’t haul you out of your chair.

Here’s my instant playlist compilation. I promise you’ll be hooked. Go on, turn up the volume!

Introducing Boubacar Traore [Musician]

Fall in love with Boubacar Traore, a Mali-born musician, now 65, whose music I discovered this morning thanks to Jesse Kornbluth.  Begin with Mondeou, and follow it up with Kar Kar Madison, Traore’s nickname. Incredible music that touches the soul – put those headphones on, turn off the lights & turn up the volume. The entire playlist of his music is here